AUGUSTUS (having asked how he had played his part, and being, of
course, commended, said): “Vos plaudite.”

BACON (Francis): “My name and memory I leave to men's
charitable speeches, to foreign nations and to the next age.”

BAILLEY: “Yes! it is very cold.” (This he said on his way to the
guillotine, when one said to him, “Why, how you shake.”)

BEAUFORT (Cardinal Henry): “I pray you all pray for me.”

BEAUMONT (Cardinal): “What! is there no escaping death?”

BECKET (Thomas a): “I confide my soul and the cause of the
Church to God, to the Virgin Mary, to the patron saints of the Church,
and to St. Dennis.” (This was said as he went to the altar in
Canterbury Cathedral, where he was assasinated.)

BEDR (The Venerable): “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.”

HALLER: “My friend, the pulse has ceased to beat.” (This was said to
his medical attendant.)

HANNIBAL: “Let us now relieve the Romans of
their fears by the death of a feeble old man.”

HARRISON (W.H.):
“I wish you to understand the true principles of government. I wish
them carried out, and ask nothing more.”

HAYDN died singing “God preserve the emperor!”

HAZLITT: “I have led a happy life.”

HENRY II. (of England). “Now let the world go as it will; I care for
nothing more.” (This he said when he was told that his favourite son
John was one of those who were conspiring against him. (Shakespeare
makes Macbeth say.

I 'gin to be a weary of the sun
And wish th' estate o' the world were now undone.)

HENRY III. “I am Harry of Winchester.” (These can hardly be called
his dying words, but only the last recorded. They were spoken on the
field of battle when a man was about to slay him. The battle of Evesham
was fought August 4th, 1265, but Henry III, died November 16th, 1272.)

HENRY VII.: “We heartily desire our executors to consider how
behoofful it is to be prayed for.”

HENRY VIII.: “All is lost! Monks,
monks, monks!”

HENRY (Prince): “Tie a rope round my body, pull me out of bed,
and lay me in ashes, that I may die with repentant prayers to an
offended God.”

HERBERT (George): “Now, Lord, receive my soul.”

HOBBES: “Now I am about to take my last voyage—a great leap in the
dark.”

HOFER (Andreas): “I will not kneel. Fire!” (Spoken to the
soldiers commissioned to shoot him.)

HOOD: “Dying, dying.”

HOOPER: “Lord, receive my spirit.”

HUMBOLDT: “How grand these rays! They seem to beckon earth to
heaven.”

HUNTER (Dr. William): “If I had strength to hold a pen,
I would write down how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.”

IRVING (Edward): “If I die, I die unto the Lord. Amen.”

JACKSON (surnamed “Stonewall”): “Send Hill to the front.”

JAMES V.
(of Scotland): “It [the crown of Scotland] came with a lass and will go
with a lass.” (This he said when told that the queen had given birth to
a daughter—the future Mary Queen of Scots.)

LAMB (Charles): “My bed-fellows are cramp and cough—we
three all in one bed.”

LAMBERT (the Martyr): “None but Christ! None but
Christ!” (This he said as he was pitched into the flames.)

LAVOISIER,
being condemned to die, asked for a respite of two weeks that he might
complete some experiments in which he was engaged. He was told that the
Republic was in no need of experiments. (See above, ARCHIMEDES.)

LAWRENCE (St.) Said to have been broiled alive on a gridiron,
A.D. 258.

This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant, eat,
And see whether raw or roasted I make the better meat.

Foxe: Book of Martyrs.

LAWRENCE (Com. James): “Don't give up the ship.” (Mortally
wounded on the Chesapeake.)

LEICESTER (Earl of): “By the
arm of St. James, it is time to die.”

LEOPOLD I. (the Kaiser): “Let me die to the sound of sweet
music.” (See Mirabeau.) LISLE (Sir George): “Ay! but I
have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and you have missed
me.”

LOCKE (John): “Oh! the depth of the riches of the goodness
and knowledge of God. Cease now.” (This was said to Lady Masham, who
was reading to him some of the Psalms.)

PONLATOWSKI (after the bridge over the Pliesse
was blown up): “Gentlemen, it behoves us now to die with honour.”

POPE: “Friendship itself is but a part of virtue.”

RABELAIS: “Let down the curtain, the farce is over.” (See
Demonax.)

RALEIGH: “It matters little how the head lies.” (Said on the
scaffold where he was beheaded.)

RENAN: “We perish, we disappear, but
the march of time goes on for ever.”

RICHARD I. (of England): “Youth, I forgive thee!” (This was said to
Bertrand de Gourdon, who shot him with

an arrow at Chalus.) Then to his attendants he added, “Take off his
chains, give him 100 shillings, and let him go.”

RICHARD III. (of England): “Treason! treason!” (At Bosworth, where
his best men deserted him and joined the army of Richmond, afterwards
Henry VII.)

ROBESPIERRE (taunted with the death of Danton): “Cowards! Why did you
not defend him?” (This must have been before his jaw was broken by the
shot of the gendarme the day before he was guillotined.)

ROCHEJAQUELEIN (the Vendean hero): “We go to meet the foe. If I
advance, follow me; if I retreat, slay me; if I fall, avenge me.”

ROLAND (Madame): “O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy
name!”

SALADIN: “When I am buried, carry my winding-sheet on the point
of a spear, and say these words: Behold the spoils which Saladin
carries with him! Of all his victories, realms, and riches, nothing
remains to him but this.” (See Severus.)

SAND (George): “Laissez la verdure.” (That is, leave the plot
green, and do not cover the grave with bricks or stone.)

SCARRON: “Ah, my children, you cannot cry for me so much as I have
made you laugh.”

SERVE'TUS (at the stake): “Christ, Son of the eternal
God, have mercy upon me.” (Calvin insisted on his saying, “the eternal
Son of God,” but he would not, and was burnt to death.)

SEVE'RUS: “I have been everything, and everything is nothing. A
little urn will contain all that remains of one for whom the whole
world was too little.” (See Saladin.)

SEYMOUR (Jane): “No, my head never committed any treason; but,
if you want it, you can take it.” (As Jane Seymour died within a
fortnight of the birth of her son Edward—the cause of unbounded
delight to the king—I cannot believe that this traditionary speech
is correct.)

SHARPE (Archbishop): “I shall be happy.”

SHERIDAN: “I am absolutely undone.”

SIDNEY (Algernon): “I know that my Redeemer liveth. I die for
the good old cause.” (He was condemned to death by Judge Jeffries as an
accomplice in the Rye House plot.)

SIDNEY (Sir Philip): “I would not change my joy for the empire
of the world.”

SIWARD (the Dane): “Lift me up that I may die standing,
not lying down like a cow.” (See Louis XVIII, and Vespasian.)

SOCRATES: “Crito, we owe a cock to Æsculapios.”

STAEL (Madame de): “I have loved God, my father, and liberty.”

STEPHEN (the first Christian martyr): “Lord, into thy hands I commend
my spirit.”

TYLER (Wat): “Because they are all under my command, they are
sworn to do what I bid them.”

VANE (Sir Harry): “It is a bad
cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man.”

VESPASIAN: “A king should die standing” (See Louis XVIII. and
Siward); but his last words were, “Ut puto, deus fio” (referring to the
fact that he was the first of the Roman emperors who died a natural
death, if, indeed, Augustus was poisoned, as many suppose).

VICARS (Hedley): “Cover my face.”

VOLTAIRE: “Do let me die in peace.”

WASHINGTON: “It is well. I die hard, but am not afraid to go.”

WESLEY: “The best of all is, God is with us.”

WILBERFORCE (His father said to him, “So He giveth His beloved
sleep”; to which Wilberforce replied): “Yes, and sweet indeed is the
rest which Christ giveth.” (Saying this, he never spoke again.)

WILLIAM I.: “To my Lady, the Holy Mary, I commend myself; that she,
by her prayers, may reconcile her beloved Son to me.”

WILLIAM II.: “Shoot, Walter, in the devil's name!” (Walter Tyrrell
did shoot, but killed the king.)

WILLIAM III.: “Can this last long?”
(To his physician. He suffered from a broken collarbone.)

WILLIAM (of Nassau): “O God, have mercy upon me, and upon this poor
nation.” (This was just before he was shot by Balthasar Gerard.)

WILSON (the ornithologist): “Bury me where the birds will sing over
my grave.” WOLFE (General): “What! do they run already? Then I
die happy.” (See Epaminondas.) WOLSEY (Cardinal): “Had I
but served my God with half the zeal that I have served my king, He
would not have left me in my grey hairs.”

WORDSWORTH: “God bless you! Is that you, Dora?”

WYATT (Thomas): “What I then said [about the treason of
Princess Elizabeth] I unsay now; and what I now say is the truth.”
(This was said to the priest who waited on him on the scaffold.)

ZISKA (John): “Make my skin into drum-heads for the Bohemian
cause.” Many of these sayings, like all other history, belong to the
region of Phrase and Fable, but the collection is interesting and
fairly exhaustive.